I rested my head against his broad back and wrapped my arms around his front. “We’re making progress,” I murmured. “Crom Cruach was right about the musician. He doesn’t have the magical harp, but he knows its location. Aengus is going to direct us to the Palace of Bóinne to get the Harp of Dagda.”
Drayce groaned. “You can’t go there.”
“It’s on the edge of the Summer Court. If we’re fast, the Fear—”
“Melusina once mentioned that Dagda was a collector of rare things.” Drayce turned around and cupped my cheeks with his hands. His green eyes looked like pools of black in the dim light, and his cheekbones sharp enough to cut stones. “You look too much like Dana for him to resist not making you part of his collection.”
“Aengus didn’t mention that,” I said. When Drayce didn’t react as expected to my mention of his name, I exhaled a long sigh. “We don’t have any choice.”
He broke eye contact and turned his head to the side. “There is one.”
My heart skipped. He couldn’t suggest a confrontation with the Fear Dorcha. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know how to use my new power. I hadn’t gotten the chance to practice anything except put my blood on a blade.
“Plunge an iron dagger through my heart,” he said.
“What?” I broke away from his grip.
His arms dropped to his side. “Neara—”
“No.” I raised my palm. “How do you know you won’t die?”
“I am more powerful than I was before,” he said in a monotone. “I will survive.”
Stepping back, I shook my head for emphasis. “Queen Melusina managed to kill your father, and he already claimed his throne. I won’t kill you again.”
He shook his head.
“Even if you didn’t die, stabbing you in the heart could send your soul to the Otherworld.”
Silence stretched between us, and Drayce dropped his gaze to the floor, which was now ankle-deep in moss. A breeze swirled around the room, and soft leaves caressed my bare skin.
Was this even Drayce? I stepped back to find vines wrapping around the bedpost, their tendrils spiraling toward me.
“What’s that?” I took another step back and bumped into Drayce.
“The bed is trying to capture you,” he said. “Each time I escape the room, I end up on that mattress, and each time it becomes more difficult to leave it.”
My throat convulsed. “Do you think the curse is getting stronger?”
“Or more determined.” Drayce’s hand wrapped around my shoulder. “I won’t die from a dagger in the heart.”
“Has anyone stabbed you there before?”
He shook his head.
“Have you ever suffered a fatal wound?” I asked. When Drayce parted his lips to reply. “I’m not counting the time I set your scales on fire.”
His nostrils flared, and he clenched his jaw. “If an hour in this dream equates to a day on the outside, this place is as much a trap for you as it is for me.”
The truth in Drayce’s words rang through my ears like church bells. When he had been under the influence of the moss, he had been desperate to keep me in that bed. Now, the bed appeared harmless until a person got close. It was a trap within a trap, but I couldn’t cut myself off from Drayce.
“Even if you’re right, and the iron dagger doesn’t make you permanently dead, do you think you can survive without a heart?”
He didn’t answer.
My brows drew together, and I bit down on my lip. Was this even Drayce? He knew I hadn’t forgiven myself for the way I broke his last curse, yet he wanted me to hurt him again. He stepped toward me, but I raised my palm, making him retreat to the window.
“Let me think about it,” I said.
“We may not have the time,” he replied.
I shook my head. “You don’t know what you’re ask—”
“Your Majesty!”
My eyes snapped open, and I stared into the worried faces of Nessa and Rosalind. The lanterns in this part of the suite glowed with dim light, illuminating Drayce slumbering beneath the sheets.
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“You wanted me to wake you when we reached the border,” Rosalind said.
I pushed myself off the mattress and rubbed my eyes. “How long was I gone this time?”
“Three days,” Rosalind replied.
“I was barely there for ten minutes.”
Nessa stared into the seeing-glass. “We’re close to the caster of His Majesty’s curse, and the enchantment’s effects have intensified. When you used the glass in the kitchens, you were only gone for a few minutes. I wouldn’t risk venturing into the dream again.”
My heart sank. The next time, I might awaken in the Otherworld with the Fear Dorcha having captured my body for Queen Melusina.
“We have another problem,” said Rosalind.
I tore my gaze away from the seeing-glass and swung my legs off the bed. “What’s wrong?”
“The capall don’t want to approach the palace.” She stepped back giving me space to walk around the bed. “It’s best that I show you, rather than explain what has them so spooked.”
Rosalind and Nessa walked out of the suite’s bedroom area and across the space containing the sofa and dining chair.
Outside, the sun shone down from a clear, blue sky, illuminating a limestone bridge with arched supports dipped into crystalline water. A fortified tower stood at the end of the bridge, and beyond that loomed a forested hill.
I continued through the door, past the narrow hallway of the carriage’s entrance, still gazing at the pleasant view.
Rosalind pushed open the door to the carriage’s other compartment and stepped aside. “This is what I mean.”
Up on the wide window that faced the front of the carriage was a wall of black, not even illuminated by the moon and stars. Aengus and Cliach rose from their bunks and bowed.
My throat dried, and I gulped several deep breaths. That was the Summer Court.
Chapter 10
I walked past the dining table, the sight of the curse so arresting that I barely felt the bump of my hip on one of the wooden chairs. This was no illusion, as the birds flying toward the Summer Court swerved as though they had reached the edge of the world.
The darkness cleaved the countryside, seeming to erase the landscape beyond into a void of black. It reached up into the sky and swallowed the moving clouds.
I turned around to the other occupants of the carriage. “The last time we flew through the Summer Court, we encountered the Dullahan. Are there more than one?”
Rosalind hovered by the door, her features held in a stoic mask. Nessa folded her arms across her ample chest and stared at the darkness with her milky eye. She clamped her lips shut and breathed hard through her potato-shaped nose. Cliach lay on his bunk and held his golden harp to his chest.
Aengus sat at the dining table and grimaced. “There are things in the dark more terrifying than a headless horseman, and not all of them can be slain.”
A shiver rippled down my spine. “Do you still recognize this area after a thousand years? You said we could access the Palace of Bóinne without traveling through the Summer Court.”
“This is Bóinne Bridge that leads straight to the palace’s front gates.” He pointed toward the small window behind Nessa’s counter. “The river narrows a few miles west from here and backs onto the swine field. We can approach the palace through one of the outbuildings.”
“If they haven’t been demolished or moved elsewhere,” muttered Rosalind.
Ignoring the pessimism in my companion’s words, I drew away from the window and turned back to the others. They stared back at me with expectant eyes, perhaps needing me to say something to inspire their courage.
“The Dagda would have secured his servants a way to enter and leave the palace without encountering the curse,” I said. “We just need to find it.”
“I’ll tell the coachmen.” Nessa bustled past and rapped on t
he window. A hatch opened, letting in the scent of hay and horses. I peered over her shoulder to find a third compartment lined with pale wood, occupied by guards and stalls of capall.
I took a seat next to Aengus on the dining table as the carriage changed direction from the bridge to the riverside. Rosalind lowered herself into the seat opposite mine and pulled out a pack of blank playing cards. She raised her brows in question, and I shook my head.
The river meandered through swathes of countryside and curved around tall monoliths covered in ancient script. We passed alongside forests built upon mounds in the earth I recognized as faerie dwellings, and through villages of tiny wooden huts tightly packed beneath the canopy of tall trees.
As Rosalind and Aengus played a game with seemingly blank cards, Nessa appeared at my side. She held a small tray containing squares of twice-baked bread dipped in honey and a glass pot of tea containing a single jasmine flower with white petals clustered like an artichoke. After placing the tea and honey bread on the table, she wiped her hands on her apron and stepped back.
“Would you like anything else, Your Majesty?” Nessa asked.
I shook my head and gestured for her to take a seat next to Rosalind. My insides still roiled from my last conversation with Drayce, and I doubted I’d be able to keep anything down for long.
“King Drayce asked me to kill him,” I murmured.
Nessa narrowed her eyes. “How do you know it was really His Majesty and not the Fear Dorcha?”
My gaze dropped to the flower floating in the teapot, its petals unfurling with every passing heartbeat. “I don’t.”
Nobody spoke for several moments, and the carriage passed a stretch of river where a large male herded three goats over a swaying bridge made of fraying rope. I gathered my thoughts, trying to muster a way to explain my suspicions. “The first time I visited the dream, it’s intentions were obvious. King Drayce was in a room and wanted me to stay with him.”
“And fall into the curse,” said Rosalind.
I nodded. “I extracted him from a bed of moss that wanted to consume his body, and he returned to himself, but today…” A tight band of worry formed around my chest and squeezed my lungs until I could barely breathe. “This time, he asked me to plunge an iron dagger into his heart.”
Nessa pursed her lips. “And eliminate your most powerful ally.”
“I agree with the gruagach,” said Aengus. “Whoever you met in the dream sees King Drayce as a threat.”
“Her name is Nessa,” Rosalind spat in a tone that implied she had corrected him more than once.
The corner of Aengus’ lip curled into the barest of smiles, and he turned to meet Rosalind’s scowl with an expression of wide-eyed innocence.
I exhaled a frustrated breath and turned back to Nessa. “Can you sense anything else?”
She reached across the table, picked up the teapot and poured a steaming cup of tea into a glass cup. By now, the jasmine flower had completely bloomed, revealing the pale, yellow filaments in its center.
“I could take another drop of His Majesty’s blood, but I doubt it will change what I discovered in the kitchen,” she said. “You’re the only person capable of breaking his curse.”
I glanced at Cliach, who sat up on his bunk and restrung his golden harp. “What about him?”
“If we reach the palace, you’ll discover the answer to that question.” Nessa rose from the table, returned to her counter, and busied herself with preparing the next meal.
I turned my gaze back to the window. The river ahead narrowed to a stream of about twenty feet, just as Aengus had promised. On the other side was a muddy field containing dozens of triangular pigsties with thatched roofs that stretched down to the mud. Low fences surrounded each sty, and most of the pigs gathered around troughs, indicating that someone had recently fed them.
A copse of trees ringed the field but they were mostly cast in shadow from the giant wall of black.
I bit down on my lip, remembering something Drayce told me. “Aengus?”
He raised his head. “Your Majesty?”
“King Drayce said the Dagda might try to collect me.”
Aengus’ brows rose. “How so?”
“He says I might remind him of Dana.”
Aengus’ gaze roved over my hair. “My father has dozens of lovers, but I’ve never heard of him keeping a female against her will.”
I nodded at the confirmation that the person I had met in the dream was either not Drayce or a version of him so influenced by the curse that he wanted to keep me from breaking it.
We crossed over the water, over the field of pigs, the carriage slowing with each passing moment. The capall tossed their heads and swished their tales. I wasn’t sure if they were frightened of the pigs or the encroaching darkness.
My mouth dried, and my heart skittered an irregular beat. With fingers that wouldn’t stop trembling, I placed my warm cup to my lips and inhaled the tea’s sweet, floral scent.
“Your Majesty?” said Rosalind. “The capall slowed like this the last time they stopped.”
I gulped a mouthful of fragrant tea. “Let’s get as close to the palace as we can.”
Aengus stood and walked to the front of the carriage. “I will direct the coachmen to the swineherd’s cottage. There’s an underground tunnel that leads to the palace’s kitchen.”
The tightness in my chest loosened enough for me to murmur my thanks.
Nessa’s steady chopping of vegetables was the only thing keeping me tethered to this world as we crossed the narrow stretch of river and approached the darkness. It stood beyond the trees as solid as a block of obsidian with a shadow that stretched halfway across the field.
Rosalind turned to me and offered a strained smile. “Dagda will allow you to awaken His Majesty in exchange for one of the items you brought along, I’m sure.”
I glanced at Nessa, her warnings ringing through my ear. Only his mate could break his curse. Did that mean I had to play the harp or did that mean the person in the dream really was Drayce, and I needed to stab him through the heart?
My jaws clenched. If I stabbed Drayce without at least trying to obtain the harp and things went wrong, I wouldn’t want to continue living.
The carriage descended to the middle of the field, and we stopped at the edge of the shadows. Aengus emerged from the front and sighed. “The capall won’t go any further.”
I rose from my seat. “Are we near the Swineherd’s hut?”
“It’s within the shadows,” he answered. “I’m going out with a couple of guards to check that the doors are open.”
“Let me come with you,” I said.
“Your Majesty.” Rosalind placed a hand on my arm. “Please let someone else check. As soon as you step into the cursed land, the Fear Dorcha will learn our location and attack.”
“Very well.” I slumped back into my seat and stared at the plate of honey bread. My belly took that moment to growl, and Rosalind pushed the plate closer.
There was nothing else to do. I bit into the hard, sweet bread and gnawed out of frustration. If that hadn’t been Drayce in the dream, then each time I visited, it meant the Fear Dorcha crawled deeper into my mind, learned my secrets, and adjusted the dream to match my perception of Drayce. I raised the jasmine tea to my lips, filled my nostrils with its floral scent, and washed down my mouthful.
Cliach finished restringing his harp, strummed a few notes, and readjusted the strings. Nessa placed handfuls of sliced vegetables into a bubbling cauldron and threw in a bundle of mixed herbs. I sipped mouthful after mouthful of jasmine tea from my glass cup, which never seemed to empty, even when the flower floated to the bottom of the empty teapot.
The door to the front opened, and Aengus stepped back inside, his features grim, his sandals and the bottom edge of his cloak caked in mud.
I leaned forward in my seat and clasped my hands so tightly that they ached. “Report.”
“The swineherd’s hut is sealed with magic.”<
br />
“What are our other options?” I asked.
He glanced at the window over his shoulder, revealing mud streaks on the back of his cloak. “We travel to the palace’s main doors on foot.”
I shook my head. That wasn’t an option. “I can’t leave King Drayce alone, even with guards.”
Rosalind nodded. “If we untether the horses, we might get the carriage to move by itself.”
“The palace’s front entrance is several miles away.” Aengus ran his fingers through his golden curls and sighed. “It will be impossible to navigate an entire coach through absolute darkness.”
I gulped. Drayce would have moved the carriage with his shadows. Queen Melusina probably would have replaced the capall with coachmen or made everyone pull the carriage through the mud while she sat back in the royal suite and fed from an unwilling slave. I needed an alternative.
The capall trumpeted a scream that made the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I turned my gaze to the window to find them rearing up at something emerging from the shadows. Their wings spread as though desperate to take flight, but they moved in four different directions, keeping themselves in place.
Burning-red eyes stared out at us from deep within the shadows, reminding me of coals glowing from a stoked fire. I rose from my seat on legs that wouldn’t stop shaking, a breath catching in the back of my throat. Was this the Fear Dorcha?
“Turn on the lanterns.” My voice seemed to come from nowhere.
The carriages external lights shone brighter, illuminating a skeletal capall hovering several feet above the mud, its wing bones spread. Smoke billowed from his nostrils, matching the silver smoke billowing down his spine in place of a mane.
“Enbarr.” I rushed toward the hallway.
“Your Majesty.” Rosalind grabbed my arm. “You can’t go out there. What if that specter was sent by our enemies?”
I paused. After three trips to that dream realm, the Fear Dorcha could have plucked Enbarr’s existence from my mind. Or Queen Melusina told him about the living skeleton Drayce rode everywhere.
As Enbarr advanced toward the carriage, Cliach cringed in the back of his bunk, clutching his newly stringed harp to his chest. Aengus unsheathed his sword and pulled back his shoulders.
Mate of the Fae King (Dark Faerie Court Book 2) Page 9
